Feelings of Guilt
by Healer Pomfrey
Summary: Minerva McGonagall feels guilty after Harry's encounter with Voldemort at the end of book 1 and tries to convince Dumbledore to let her take Harry in. Very fluffy, completely AU, sick!Minerva


**Feelings of Guilt**

**by Healer Pomfrey**

_All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story._

_I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes!_

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Seventy-year-old Transfiguration professor, Head of Gryffindor and Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts Minerva McGonagall jerked awake, gasping for air. '_Harry_,' she thought, horrified as she scrambled out of her bed, ready to dash out of her bedroom, when realisation set in. '_All these things happened last night_,' she remembered. '_There is nothing that I can do for Harry now. I completely failed him. How could I be so careless? He was like a grandchild to me when Lily was still alive. I should have gone to check on him at the Dursleys and gain his trust. At least when he came to Hogwarts, I should have spoken with him in private and tell him about Lily and James. As his Head of House I'm supposed to be like a mother while he is at Hogwarts. Maybe if he knew me a bit better, he would have come to me to seek help instead of going through such a dangerous adventure together with two other first years_.'

'_He came to me, together with his friends, but I sent them away_,' a small voice at the back of her head spoke up, making her feel even more miserable at the thought of having failed her little lion. She slowly brought her thumbs to her forehead to massage her temples against the headache that had been bothering her since the previous day. '_I hope I'm not getting sick_,' she thought, noticing that her throat felt more than just a little scratchy and her chest hurt each time she swallowed. She lay down and nestled deep into her covers in order to get some more much needed sleep.

However, sleep did not come easily. If she closed her eyes or opened them, she saw Harry, lying wounded in a puddle of blood on a stone floor. She counted the griffins on the tapestry next to her bed, and she tried to think of questions for a pop quiz for her first years for the first morning class; however, she was not able to dismiss the thought how she had failed the one of her little lions that personally mattered to her. '_Lily will be so disappointed_,' she mused, feeling tears well in her achy eyes.

After an hour of nursing sad thoughts, Minerva dragged herself out of her bed and threw her warm green bathrobe over her burgundy night robe. Completely ignoring the portrait of Godric Gryffindor that was guarding the entrance door to her private quarters and had the gall to ask where she was going at four o'clock in the morning, she slowly walked to the hospital wing and let herself sink in the chair next to Harry's bed.

"I'm so sorry, Harry. Thank Merlin that you're all right. I love you, my little lion, but I can't play favourites in front of everyone," she whispered, fighting the urge to touch the boy's hand in order not to wake him up. Busily trying to suppress the tears, she did not notice the tall figure in the shadow that was observing her closely. "I'll try to make everything better from now on," she sobbed and, unable to suppress the tears anymore, hurried out of the hospital wing, not even caring where she was going.

HP

Albus Dumbledore slowly stepped out of the shadows, from where he had watched Harry sleep and his Deputy and best friend whisper to the boy, before she had fled the room, crying. He took the seat that Minerva had vacated and looked out of the window, while he listened to the boy's calm breathing. The Giant Squid was playing in the moonshine, noisily splashing water here and there. All of a sudden, he noticed that Minerva apparently had not returned to her quarters as he had expected. The Scottish lioness was walking around the lake, before she let herself sink onto a bench beside the water.

'_It's much too cold to sit there at this time of the night_,' the Headmaster thought and slowly crossed the room in order to follow his friend out onto the grounds. He was just about to step through the large entrance doors, when Minerva came inside, shivering violently and holding on to the wall to steady herself.

"Minerva, are you sick?" Albus asked, terrified, as he looked into the witch's face. While the hospital wing had been dark and only sparsely lit by a small torch, the moon light flooded the entrance hall, and he realised that her cheeks were deeply flushed and her eyes were glassy and surrounded by dark rings.

"I'm fine," Minerva gave back but felt miserable enough to allow him to gently steady her as he led her back to her quarters.

HP

Minerva sighed in relief as she sat on the sofa in the living room, closing her eyes as she unconsciously leaned into the cold touch of her old friend's hands. '_Where did he come from at that time of the nigh_t?' she wondered. '_Maybe he came to blame me, because I didn't properly take care of Harry_.'

"Albus, I'm sorry," she began, slowly trailing off as the Headmaster began to speak.

"Minerva, let me take you to the hospital wing," he said gently, eyeing her in concern.

"No. I'm fine. I'm only tired," Minerva lied, unwilling to endure any fussing at the moment.

"Well then allow me to check your temperature," Albus said sternly and waved his wand at a tissue in his hands that he transfigured into a magical thermometer. "Open your mouth," he instructed her. "We make a deal. If you don't have a fever, you may do as you please, and I'll leave you in peace; however, if you have a fever, I'm going to fetch Poppy."

Minerva didn't even have a chance to protest, because he slid the cold stick into her mouth as soon as she made a faint attempt to voice her opinion. Sighing in annoyance, she closed her eyes and leaned her achy head against the old wizard's shoulder.

"I won," he announced an instant later as he released her from the device that was flashing in an angry red colour. He carefully made her lie down on the sofa and headed to the fireplace to call the Mediwitch.

HP

Minerva groaned inwardly. Poppy Pomfrey had been her best friend since they met on the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of their first Hogwarts year. The Mediwitch was always worried about her health and usually made a huge fuss when she found out that anything was not one hundred percent all right with her. '_I don't need that now_,' she thought in annoyance. She barely looked up when Poppy bustled into the room, clucking disapprovingly at the results as she waved her wand over her to cast several diagnostic spells. Minerva tuned the concerned voices of Poppy and Albus out, until the Mediwitch addressed her directly. "Minerva, are you listening at all?" Poppy asked strictly. "You are very ill and completely worn out. I won't scold you now, but you're in dire need of rest and need to closely follow my instructions for once. I want you to stay in bed until I tell you otherwise. Albus will teach your classes for the five days until the end of the school year."

"No," Minerva protested weakly. "I'm going to teach my classes myself. I promise..."

"No Minerva. You'll do as Poppy says," the Headmaster interrupted her in a gentle but firm voice.

"Only if you allow me to take Harry in," Minerva croaked. "I can't live with the guilt of having completely failed him anymore. Only last week he begged you to take him away from these horrid relatives of him, and..."

Albus let out a long sigh. "Minerva, you know as well as I do..." He trailed off when Poppy interrupted him and said something in a very small voice that Minerva was unable to understand.

Before she could hear more, she succumbed to the potions that the Mediwitch had just spelled into her system and drifted off into a much needed healing sleep.

HP

It was a few days later when Minerva felt considerably better that she found a parchment on her night table. She slowly sat up and reached for her glasses, before she took a glance at the official looking parchment. '_I won_,' she chuckled to herself as she stared at the guardianship parchments that made her the official guardian of one Harry Potter. '_Now I can make up for being a bad mother, grandmother, Head of House or whatever to Harry. I don't know how Poppy managed to convince Albus to give in, but I won,_' she thought, and a rare smile played on her lips as she called her personal house-elf and instructed him to tell Harry Potter to come to her office in thirty minutes, so that she could tell her little lion the good news.

**The End**

_Sorry if this is too boring and fluffy. I wrote this during a sleepless night and thought maybe a few people might enjoy reading._**  
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